Award-winning author Rudy Ruiz grew up on the Texas-Mexico border. For years, his writing has been influenced and grounded in Mexican-American culture.
Those award-winning books have primarily been works of fiction. But with his latest, “The Border Between Us,” Ruiz pulls from his real-life story – stories his children might beg him to tell.
Ruiz joined the Standard to discuss his new novel. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: I saw that you wrote this book over the course of something like, what, 15, 16 years? Your children sort of encouraging you to do that?
Rudy Ruiz: Yes, it was a long process. Closer to 10 years, but still, it’s quite a length of time.
I think it’s wonderful that they would even know to ask about some of these stories because such a central part of this book is about your relationship with your father and a lot of times young people don’t even know to ask – and much less what to ask about – that relationship, you know what I mean?
Yes. I felt very fortunate that ever since our children were little, they would ask for those bedtime stories. And of course, my wife and I read them books, but it seemed like their favorite stories were the ones about when we were kids, ourselves.
And they wanted to get to know us. And I think I was fortunate that I was raised by some very talented natural storytellers. My father was definitely one, and my maternal grandmother was also.
One of the first stories that became their favorite was a story about when I was in elementary school in Brownsville. I started my own little business importing packets of powdered chile from the mercado in Matamoros and selling it to my classmates in school in Brownsville – for a small profit, of course.
And they loved that story, and they loved kind of how the story ended up with a twist where the school that I was going to ended up shutting my business down because my chile was A, taking money away from their food sales and B, it was getting some of the kids stomach aches and giving them stomach aches.
So they love that – the way the story ended up with the lunch lady kind of pumping her fist in the air at me and telling me, “Rudy Ruiz, you need to stop selling that chile or you’re going to put me out of business.”
And I think that that’s what stands out here, is that you’re really exploring this notion of the border in many deeper ways. There’s a generational border there, too.
But that’s a big part of this, and I’m wondering when you were thinking – when you were putting this book together – did you imagine that you’d be speaking to kids like your own or were you thinking more broadly about the borders that we sort of take for granted in our lives?
Yeah, I was thinking, you know, of course I wanted it to appeal to young people, but I also wanted it appeal to adults. I wanted to resonate with fellow Latinos, to see themselves represented in it. But I also want it to have a universal appeal to anyone from any walk of life, from any background.
And I think those things like the generational borders – the boundaries or divisions that we end up creating between each other in our families or in our friend groups, in our communities, some of them artificial, some of the driven by very real differences in experiences… Those are universal, and those are things that I wanted to be able to share with people, regardless of their background.
So I think I was looking at many different kinds of borders and how they keep us both from each other, but also from ourselves in a way. And so it was a long and very reflective and kind of immersive journey for me as a writer, but it’s also very personally fulfilling and kind therapeutic even, you know, to dig into experiences from my own life and people that I grew up around – loved, lost, those kind of things.
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Ramón Lopez is the boy who is sort of at the center of this book, and he seems to have a lot of self-doubt, and I wonder if, as you were writing this – of course, obviously this is written and riffing on your own experience here – but did you feel that? Personally, as you are moving into the creative sphere that you would ultimately end up occupying.
I think, to some extent, growing up in Brownsville and Matamoros on the border was an amazing experience, but it’s very much a different way of life and a different environment than when at age 17 I went up to Harvard College, sight unseen, to become a freshman there and pursue my dreams.
My dreams were to go to Harvard, to be a writer, to be a creative. I was also very interested in public policy and government and those types of things, politics. And so when I first got up to New England and the Northeast and got to work in places like New York City and Washington D.C. … Yeah, a little bit of that doubt, I think, no doubt, started to creep in.
When I was in Brownsville and it was just a dream, it was one thing, and then when I was in the middle of it, living it, and the reality started settling in – the challenges, the competition, the advantages that certain students or competitors had because maybe they had grown up in places like Boston or New York or D.C. and had deeper resources and connections and so forth.
So I think, yeah, the reality starts to bring in the doubts, you know? And then, of course, what you do from there really is where you prove your mettle and you find out who you really are.
I want to listen to a little line from the promo video of your book that I find quite interesting. I’d love to get more of your thoughts on it. Let’s listen.
Rudy Ruiz (in recording): In my mind and heart, the border ran through all things, including me. It was a wavering high wire I always balanced upon, an invisible line I straddled. I saw it not as a constraint, but as an invitation – not an end, but a beginning.
I find that really intriguing because a lot of people think of borders as limitation. Here you’re talking about it as not a constraint, but an invitation. What do you mean?
Well, you know, the way I see it is when I was growing up, the border was a place where we got excited when they were going to build a new bridge – you know, when we were going to come together and celebrate Charro Days, when I was going to get to ride across the bridge and in 10 minutes be at my abuelita’s house in Mexico and spend the weekend with her and my grandfather.
Almost like a portal in a way.
Like to some other side and happiness.
Yes, for sure. You know, I think I felt very blessed growing up on the border because I wasn’t immediately being forced to choose between my Mexican heritage and roots and my American citizenship and my American dream. And I could really hold those both together growing up on the border.
And that’s why I always felt like I was sort of always with one foot in one place and one foot in the other. And somehow I found a balance and a harmony in it growing up. And I think when I left that, just like as Ramón Lopez does in the novel, it’s very easy to struggle to maintain that balance and to find how are you gonna keep carrying that hybrid bicultural identity with you throughout your life in a way that honors it completely and allows you to be fully who you are.
So to me, the border’s a place where nations don’t just have to clash, but where cultures can meet, and where families don’t have to just be torn apart, but they can come together.
